Smokers have now a good excuse for using the weed. Doctor Wenck, professor of the Imperial Institute of Berlin, has made the discovery that smokers are relatively immune to certain epidemic diseases, especially cholera. He claims that tobacco smoke rapidly kills the cholera germs.

Thursday evening the careful male wrapped his straw kelly in a newspaper and stored it away for the winter. If he challenged fate by wearing it in public the chances are that it looks like a portion of breakfast food this morning, for an arbitrary law of fashion decrees that on September 15 the felt headpiece must be cleared of moth balls and take the place of discarded straw or panama.

Skylarking youths delight in enforcing this edict of fashion and the strong-minded protagonist of personal liberty who proclaims his right to wear a hay hat with a sunrise band until the frosts of autumn turn the rose tints of an alcoholic nose to blue, is apt to have his feeling outraged and his headpiece trampled in the dust of the street.

The passing of the straw lid is a signal for the end of summer flirtations and the retirement of the bathing girl from magazine covers; it pressages football, pumpkin pie, apple butter and the approach of the season of hunting and hunting stories.

The Gettysburg Times (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania) Sep 16, 1921

Among the other trials laid up for us during the coming summer is an advance in the price of straw hats. The war in China is causing a shortage in the importations of straw braid, which comes from Santung, where millions of rolls of the material have been burned and destroyed by the rebels.

Alton Democrat (Alton, Iowa) Jan 13, 1912

They say this is a free country but it is surprising how the straw hats disappear at a certain time each year.

Alton Democrat (Alton, Iowa) Sep 27, 1913

Straw hats are cheaper this year than in 1924, possibly for the reason that the supply of material is greater with no straw votes being taken.

Albuquerque Morning Journal (Albuquerque, New Mexico) Apr 21, 1925

Some time ago we felt the urge to buy a straw hat, but had to use the money to purchase a half a ton of coal. It was a wise purchase, as those who bought straw hats and are now shivering will tell you.

Miss Inez Milholland, whose picture is here shown is the daughter of J.E. Milholland, the millionaire pneumatic tube system man. She is now in the Junior class in Vassar and announces her intention of becoming a truant officer so that she may pursue the work of reforming bad boys. Miss Milholland is an athlete of note in the college games, and has had great success in reclaiming bad boys.

Coshocton Daily Times (Coshocton, Ohio) Feb 25, 1908

AWAKENED BY YANKEE GIRL

Miss Inez Milholland, Who Wants to Vote, Roused Oxford and Cambridge.

After trying with vigor, but in vain, to convince the authorities of Oxford and Cambridge universities in England that she should be permitted to study law at one of the two venerable institutions Miss Inez Milholland of New York sailed for America to try her persuasive powers at Harvard.

Miss Milholland has won fame as a young leader of the suffragists. She was recently graduated from Vassar, where she conducted a vigorous campaign in favor of women’s votes.

She is the daughter of John E. Milholland of New York and London, and a background of wealth has not lessened her charm. Her bronze hair, large blue eyes and well modeled features make her a classic type.

At Vassar Miss Milholland kept President Taylor on the rack, inciting miniature equal rights resolutions among the students. When the suffragists of the state journeyed to the capitol at Albany for their annual hearing on woman and the vote the president peremptorily forbade Miss Milholland to accompany them, fearing her presence would accentuate the rumor that the college was a center of the woman’s rights campaign.

Aside from her political tendencies, Miss Milholland made no mean record at Vassar. Her scholarship put her well in the fore, and her athletic prowess was the boast of her associates. As captain of the hockey team she led her players to a victory that captured the interclass championship. She was conspicuous on field day and champion in putting the eight pound shot.

Coshocton Daily Times (Coshocton, Ohio) Oct 9, 1909

There was as much excitement in suffragette headquarters Thursday as if the New York legislature were about to grant women the right to vote. It was not joyful excitement, however, because the rumor spread that Inez Milholland, vivacious, bronze-haired, and clever suffragette, was engaged to be married to Sydney Smith. In other words, the rumor had it that Miss Milholland and Mr. Smith, both warm friends of Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont, had formed a friendship under the guiding influence of Mrs. Belmont, and that perhaps the energy and enthusiasm of the most picturesque suffragette would be lost.

There was a jingle of telephone bells as suffragettes hunted for Miss Milholland. There was suppressed grief and an occasional sob over the thought the young woman might give up law, forsake the cause of woman suffrage, and become an ordinary housewife or a society matron. Miss Milholland was not in the Hotel Manhattan. She was in the New York University Law School, digging out cases and hunting for points that would prove the right of women to vote. At least her mother thought so.

Mrs. John E. Milholland was likewise frantic over the rumor of the reported engagement.

“No, it was not true. It could not be true,” she said.

But the fearful mother quickly put in a hurry telephone call for the university. Miss Milholland was found finally in the law library poring over a musty tome and racing to get our her lesson, as she was planning a suffragette meeting for the young men of the law school in the evening. When the young woman was reached she listened calmly as her mother recited the details of the alleged engagement.

“What does all this mean?” asked the excited mother.

“Nothing, mama,” answered the modern Portia. “Mother, don’t you know I am too busy to think of such things? I have my law, the cause, and, what’s more, I have a woman’s suffrage meeting right here in the university tonight and I haven’t time to discuss such things.”

Miss Milholland, who is a daughter of John E. Milholland, one time politician and now a millionaire promoter, with headquarters in London, is an alumna of Vassar. She stood near the head of her class, was a star debater in college, and always an advocate of woman suffrage. She kept things lively in college with her organizations and her fights for her rights. She passes much of her time in England, where she is regarded as the most beautiful suffragette. Her advocacy of woman suffrage, her skill and eloquence as a speaker, won her the admiration of Mrs. Belmont, and the two have become almost inseparable.

The suffragettes who have been marching on Washington already had their troubles. I understand that when they left one place the hens quit the coops and started to follow them. And a rooster flew in front of a speckled hen and asked her for heaven’s sake to go back, and she crowed in his face.

I recollect hearing about a suffragette who was making a speech. She said: “I pant for the right to vote. I pant for the right to exercise my political rights.” And some one in the audience spoke up and said: “Lady, you pant for a pair of pants.” — Representative Heflin, on the floor of the House.

The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.) Mar 2, 1913

Miss Inez Milholland.

NEW YORK, March 21. — Miss Inez Milholland, known as the most beautiful suffragette in New York, who has just been admitted to the New York bar, is working on her first case as associate counsel to James W. Osborne, defending Gee Doy Young, a Chinatown gunman, who is charged with having started the last Tong war that resulted in five killings.

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Mar 21, 1913

The Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, Indiana) Mar 15, 1913

Miss Inez Milholland, the handsome New York suffragette, was married in the Kensington registry office, London, to Eugene Boissevain, a wealthy Dutchman of Amsterdam. The bridegroom, who is 33 years old, is engaged in the wireless business and was introduced to Miss Milholland in New York a few weeks ago by Signor Meroni. His father, Charles Boissevain, of Amsterdam, is the owner of rich plantations in Java. He is also the principal owner of the foremost newspaper in Amsterdam. The couple will spend their honeymoon in a cruise on the North sea and will sail for New York in August. Miss Milholland was graduated from Vassar in 1909, and while there she kept the faculty on pins and needles with her advanced views on feminism and socialism. It was she who started the suffrage movement in Vassar, enrolling two-thirds of the students in the cause and then proceeding to teach them the meaning of socialism. She held a record for throwing the basketball. The bride will continue her law practice when she returns to New York.

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Jul 21, 1913

Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Apr 05, 1914

Inez Milholland Admits Proposing

NEW YORK, Nov. 27. — Inez Milholland Boissevain, lawyer and suffragist, advocated yesterday that women should have the right to propose. She said:

“Certainly women should have the right to propose — I did it myself.”

Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) Nov 27, 1915

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 27. — Mrs. Inez Milholland Boissevain, widely-known suffragist and welfare worker, died in a hospital here shortly before midnight Saturday night after an illness of 10 weeks. She was 30 years old.

Mrs. Boissevain was stricken suddenly while addressing the recent political campaign and fainted on the platform at the meeting. She was removed to a hospital and her husband and parents rushed from New York to join her here. Miss Vida Milholland, her sister, was with her when she was stricken and has been in constant attendance since that time.

Inez Milholland Boissevain had been for many years well known for her activity as a woman suffragist, a social welfare worker, an advocate of socialism and as a practising lawyer.

During the 1908 Presidential campaign she won new fame as “the girl who broke up the Taft parade.”

Following her graduation from Vassar College, she attempted to enter Harvard Law School, but this permission was denied her on the ground that it was not a co-educational institution. Miss Milholland finally received her degree in law at the New York University Law School in 1912, and during this time she was active as a suffrage worker and speaker and organizer of woman’s parades, being featured in them both in New York, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere as “the most beautiful suffragette.”

In July, 1913, she married by a civil ceremony in London, Eugene Boissevain, a wealthy Hollander. In 1916 she went as a delegate on the Ford Pence Ship, but left the party at Stockholm, because, as she said in a statement, “the undemocratic methods employed by the managers are repugnant to my principles.” Mrs. Boissevain was born in New York, August 6, 1886, receiving her early education in New York, London and Berlin.

The Daily Courier (Connellsville, Pennsylvania) Nov 27, 1916

Strain of Campaign … Caused Her Death.
[Excerpts]

Mrs. Boissevain’s illness was diagnosed as aplastic anemia and blood transfusion was resorted to in attempts to improve her condition. Miss Vida Milholland twice gave blood for this purpose and on four other occasions friends submitted to the ordeal in hope that benefit would result. After each transfusion temporary improvement was followed by relapse….

It was stated that Mrs. Boissevain’s trouble originated in her tonsils, which became inflamed as the result of too constant speaking during the campaign. She had been weakened by overexertion and when she became ill her system failed to resist the advance of the disease….

As a student at Vassar college, 1905-9, although known as the college beauty and possessed of wealth and position, she shunned society as such and shocked the more conservative college opinion by her radical social views….

Later the same year [1915] she went to Italy as a war correspondent and was forced to leave Italy by the authorities there because of her pacifist writings….

She was a member of the Political Equality League, Women’s Political Union, national child labor committee, Woman’s Social and Political Union of England and the Fabian Society, England.

The Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Nov 27, 1916

BEAUTIFUL SUFFRAGIST LEADER TO BE BURIED IN ADIRONDACKS
[Excerpts]

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 27. — Preparations were being made today to take the body of Mrs. Inez Milholland Boissevain, who died here Saturday night, to New York City for funeral services and thence to Meadowmount, in the Adirondacks, the old family home of the Milhollands, where the burial will take place….

Aside from her college activities, she worked among the poor children in the city of Poughkeepsie, and had herself appointed probation officer. During her first college vacation she visited London and there joined the Pankhurst suffragettes, making several speeches and being once arrested….

Following her graduation from Vassar College, she attempted to enter Harvard Law School, but his permission was denied her on the ground that it was not a coeducational institution. The incident gave rise to a heated newspaper controversy in which Inez Milholland and other prominent feminists took part. She also became active about this time in the working girls’ cause, taking part in the shirt waist makers’ strike. In the clash of the strikers with the police she was arrested and locked up, but after a controversy of several weeks the charge against her of leading an unlawful assembly was finally dropped….

She began the practice of law in 1912 as a clerk in the offices of James W. Osborne, her first case being the defense of “Red Phil” Davidson, charged with murder of “Big Jack” Zelig. Her next case was the defense of Gee Doy Yung, accused of murder in a Chinatown tong war, and she was successful in obtaining his acquittal….

Skaneateles Man is 92 Years Old and Has an Estate Valued at $100,000 — Petition Filed to Have Him Declared Incompetent.

Edmund Norman Leslie, a well know Skaneateles nonagenarian, is said to have a mania for looking up the genealogical history of his acquaintances. Skaneateles people, as a rule, are proud of their ancestry, therefore, there is nothing significant in proceedings which have been started to have the aged man declared incompetent and a committee appointed to care for his property or person.

Of course, there are some people who send their family skeleton back into its hole the moment any effort is made to bring the bony creature from its closet. Not that it would make any difference, perhaps. A black sheep or two among a long line of ancestors is more the rule than the exception, but there are some who favor not some outsider delving into the family secrets.

Nothing like that in Skaneateles. No objection was made to Mr. Leslie’s publishing a book, which was a historical review of Skaneateles with a sketch of some length of some of the more prominent families. The book was well received and Mr. Leslie was encouraged to continue his research into family histories.

Whatever Mr. Leslie discovered will not reach the public, however, because proceedings have been started to have the aged Skaneateles historian declared incompetent and a petition for the appointment of a committee has been made to County Judge W M. Rose by Attorney Martin F. Dillon of Skaneateles.

Mr. Leslie is 92 years old and has an estate valued at $100,00. He is part owner of the Mansion House at Buffalo. The committee for him has not been named.

Syracuse Herald (Syracuse, New York) Jul 4, 1908

Skaneateles, May 17. — The last chapter of the old Mansion House in the city of Buffalo was closed last Monday when Martin F. Dillon as executor and trustee under the last will [and testament of Edmund Norman Leslie] conveyed the same to the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad company. For nearly sixty years one half of the same was owned by Edmund Norman Leslie of the village of Skaneateles.

Edmund Norman Leslie was the son of Captain and Mrs. David Leslie. Captain Leslie was born in Scotland in September, 1780, in the parish of Monimail, Fishire. He became a noted ship captain and upon his retirement took up his residence at New Bedford, Mass. He had two children. Henry and Edmund Norman Leslie. Captain Leslie died in New York in 1835.

Edmund Norman Leslie also became a ship master and many time sailed around the Horn. He retired from business and came to Skaneateles in 1851. He married Millicent A. Coe, who died March 15th, 1890. Mr. Leslie was a sturdy Scotchman and believed in doing right to all his fellowmen. He took a great deal of interest in village affairs and political battles were waged by him. He was president of the village of Skaneateles in 1895 and 1896. He prevented the Skaneateles Water Works company from forcing the sale of its property on the village and in the face of its opposition guided the village while it constructed a new system. During his term of office, he also granted the franchise to the Syracuse & Auburn Electric Railroad company, preparing the franchise himself. He was also identified with the establishing of the Lake View cemetery, the Skateateles Library association and other enterprises identified with the village. He was good to the poor and each year would call upon the coal dealers to ascertain whether or not there were any poor people on their list in need of fuel.

After the death of his wife, Millicent A. Leslie, he acquired an additional interest in the Mansion house in the city of Buffalo. Mr. Leslie died at his home in Genesee street in the village of Skaneateles November 30th, 1908, at the age of 94 years. His only relatives were distant cousins, one of whom married Lieutenant Edward F. Qualtrough; another married Lieutenant Harrison, U.S.A., who at the time of his death had charge of Forrtress Monroe, and another married Lieutenant Mann who was killed in the Indian war.

In the early “forties” Belah D. Coe owned and operated many mail and stage routes, which terminated in Buffalo. To accommodate his passengers, he built the Mansion house, which contained 285 rooms. It was a brick building and substantially fireproof, the partitions also brick, extending from the cellar to the garret. For many years, it was operated by W.E. Stafford, who became famous as a hotel man, and who went to the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.

Belah D. Coe was a bachelor, and at his death in 1854, by his will, this property went to two nieces and a nephew, being Millicent A. Marshall of Buffalo, Millicent A. Leslie and Edward B. Coe of Skaneateles, and to the heirs of their body. In the event of the death of any of these people with out issue, the share was to be divided between the Buffalo Orphan asylum and the Auburn Theological seminary.

Edward B. Coe left home in 1840. He was declared judicially dead in 1857, and the share of his portion in the Mansion house went to the Buffalo Orphan asylum and to his sister, Millicent A. Leslie, as the Auburn Theological seminary could not, by its charter, take and hold real estate. After the disappearance of Edward B. Coe in 1849, he became a sailor and drifted into South Africa, where he was sold as a slave. His brother-in-law, Edmund Norman Leslie, never believed him dead. He obtained from the Department of State of Washington, the name and location of all the United States consuls and commercial agents in all parts of the world. He had a circular printed in red and black letters offering a reward of $200 for any information of Edward B. Coe, at the same time giving a minute description of his person, particularly that he had his name tatoed on his left arm. These circulars were mailed to every United States consul in all parts of the world.

Edward B. Coe Returns.

In 1891 Edward B. Coe returned and then began the fight to recover the property left him by his uncle’s will. During the argument in court, the presiding judge intimated that, having been declared judicially dead, he had no standing in court, to which his counsel, the late William H. Seward, replied: “If such a decision is to be law in this case, Edward B. Coe, who is sitting here in the presence of this court, can go into the street and commit murder and you cannot punish him, because he has been declared judicially dead.” This argument restored the property to Edward B. Coe. He lived here for several years, but meeting business reverses, he mortgaged his property to the late Charles Pardee, who afterward acquired the same by mortgage foreclosure. IN 1875 Charles Pardee committed suicide, and this property went by his will to his daughter, Mary E. Moses.

Edward B. Coe left Skaneateles for Philadelphia at which time the steamer “Queen of the Pacific” was about to leave for San Fransisco by the way of Cape Horn. After a voyage of about six weeks he reached San Francisco. The “Queen” then commenced regular trips from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon, carrying freight and passengers. He remained on this vessel until September 5th, 1883, at which time he became despondent and fastening a large heavy lantern to his arm jumped overboard and wen to the bottom of the Pacific ocean.

About that time the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad company acquired a portion of the property by condemnation, and the award was paid in court, upon the application to withdraw the same, by Millie Coe, the daughter of Edward B. Coe, then a girl 17 years of age. This indeed was a battle royal. The question raised was that she had an estate tail in this property, and her father, not having the title in fee simple, could not deprive her of it. The opposition contended that the statue of 1786 eliminated the estate tail in this country.

The legal giants of that time were employed on either side, Benoni Lee of Skaneateles, L.R. Morgan of Syracuse, P.R. Cox of Auburn, Spencer Clinton and Charles D. Marshall of Buffalo.

The court finally held that Miss Coe had no interest in the property. A short time after this decision, Edmund Norman Leslie acquired that interest and held the same at the time of his death in his ninety-fourth year. By his will, he devised the same in trust to Martin F. Dillon of Skaneateles, who has for two months been engaged in perfecting the title, and the deed was finally delivered last Monday.

The New York Central & Hudson River Railroad company will tear down the old structure and use the land for a new $10,000,000 terminal. This will be the end of an old landmark, which had stood for nearly three-quarters of a century, during which time guests from all nations of the world have been entertained.

Upon his removal to Skaneateles the want of active employment induced him to take up the subject of the early history of the town and village. He obtained two ledgers which had been kept by early merchants of 1805 and 1815 respectively, and from them secured the names of nearly all the earliest settlers, especially those who made their purchases here. He collected and preserved some very valuable historical matter concerning the locality, which was first published in a series of papers in the Democrat, afterward copied in the Free Press, and later printed in book form by Charles P. Cornell, of Auburn, N. Y.

Mr. Leslie furnished entirely from his own collections the only complete list of the names of 364 union volunteers who enlisted from the town of Skaneateles, or enlisted elsewhere, but belonged to this town, giving rank, company, and regiment, in alphabetical order, which list was published in the Free Press. He has also collected some of the most valuable files of original local newspapers, had them bound in volumes, and presented them to the Skaneateles Library Association for preservation. He has erected a beautiful memorial tablet in St. Jame’s church in memory of the sons of that church who lost their lives in defense of the Union. He has also published several series of the lives of early prominent residents of the town, notably of Lydia P. Mott, a prominent promoter of female education, who established ‘The Friend’s Female Boarding School,” which was known as “The Hive.” Many of the ladies of Auburn and surrounding country were educated at this school, which was discontinued about seventy years ago. Mr. Leslie’s labor is of a character that will survive and perpetuate his memory to coming generations. All of his valuable historical work has been done gratuitously.

The four principal steps in organizing a campaign against the fly are as follows:

First. — To educate people as to the deadly nature of the fly.

Second. — To kill off all winter flies, those hiding about the houses, waiting their season to forage.

Third. — To do away with all breeding places for flies.

Fourth. — To trap all flies which happen to escape.

The extermination of the winter fly is a problem for the individual house-wife. Don’t let one fly escape. Hunt for them all and kill them early in the spring, for the winter fly is the parent of summer’s terrible swarms.

To do away with the fly breeding places is merely a matter of cleanliness. Clean houses, gardens and yards. Clean streets and alleyways.

Discourage the fly in its breeding proclivities.

Carrying out the fourth step, the sale of fly traps should be encouraged in every store.

To sum it all up, swat the fly before it is born.

The Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) May 6, 1913

THE DIARY OF DEATH.

By ADRIENNE CODY, aged sixteen, of Central park school, Topeka.

I am a fly. I’m not very old and am just learning where to find the best things to eat. My favorite places are in the spittoon in the sitting room and the uncovered garbage can on the back porch. Of course some flies would be bothered about having to go out of doors to get to that can. But it doesn’t worry me. In the house where I live there aren’t any screens, so I can fly from the garbage can to the spittoon in perfect safety. I often stop on the way, though, to get in the sugar bowl or crawl over any eatables that are handy.

There’s a baby in this house who annoys me very much. Every time I leave the spittoon and crawl into that baby’s mouth it cries and spits me out. Of course I leave a few tuberculosis germs in its mouth, but it doesn’t seem like that would hurt the baby.

It seems to me like people don’t know what is good to eat. At least the people in this house don’t. Why, they throw away all the good things. They put them in the garbage pail. I am endeavoring to show them what good things are, however, for I get my feet all sticky in the garbage can and then go and wipe them on the bread. About a hundred of my companions are doing the same thing. I really believe that the people are beginning to like it, for they never trouble us any more. We wipe our feet on the bread in peace and quiet.

I heard the woman across the way say that she believed flies had something to do with the man in this house having consumption. I wonder if he got it from the bread.

The woman across the way is losing all her flies. They’re all coming over to our house. She won’t give them anything to eat. She covers up her garbage pail, has tight screens on all her doors and is a terror to flies in general. Her children are such happy, hearty youngsters, while the children in this house are always cross. They never get any afternoon nap. The flies won’t let them.

There’s a very great deal of illness in this house. Two of the boys have malaria and the father is never well. I hears the mother say to the woman across the way: “I really do not know what to do for all this sickness. IT drives me distracted.” What do you think that woman said? Why, “Swat the fly,” of course, at which I ducked. Oh, yes! The baby has typhoid.

The Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) May 26, 1913

Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Mar 24, 1914

NOT ONLY SWAT BUT STARVE THE FLY.

A YEAR ago the “Swat the fly!” slogan had a country wide vogue, and as a result probably billions of flies were swatted. But because of the enormous capacity of flies for multiplication — a single pair may produce billions of their kind — there did not seem to be a very appreciable diminution in the total number.

The wiser slogan “Starve the fly!” has been adopted this year, and the only means of starving the insect is by allowing it nothing on which to feed. Filth is its food, and not only should the city streets be kept clear of it and the vacant lots not be made the convenient dumping grounds for every kind of refuse, but every corner of a closet or cellar or kitchen should be cleared of its insanitary accumulations.

The most productive breeding places of the disease carrying fly are garbage cans, cuspidors and manure. To keep a large city absolutely clean with respect to these is no small task, but by the interested and intelligent cooperation of the municipal authorities and the citizens generally the danger of disease from flies can be reduced to a minimum.

“My boy John used to argue in favor of women smokin’ cigarettes, but I ain’t heard a cheep out of him since I lit one last winter to try him out.”

Suburanite Economist (Chicago, Illinois) Aug 14, 1928

Galveston Daily News – Mar 14, 1911

“A MAN with whiskers ain’t got no business smokin’ cigarettes. Pa tried smokin’ a few the winter before he shaved clean, an’ I was forever smellin’ somethin’ burnin’.”

Suburbanite Economist (Chicago, Illinois) Sep 11, 1928

Reno Evening Gazette – Mar 15, 1911

Two things that keep Jane’s teen age daughter from eatin’ enough are smokin’ cigarettes and the knowledge that she has a cute little figure.

Traverse City Record Eagle (Traverse City, Michigan) Sep 18, 1962

The Atlanta Constitution – Mar 29, 1911

Jim Harkins has taken to readin’ theatrical magazines. He’ll be smokin’ cigarettes next.

Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) Aug 22, 1913

Most o’ th’ daubed-up girls I see sittin’ around with ther knees crossed smokin’ cigarettes must be gettin’ by on ther personality, if they git by at all. I remember when it used t’ take ten or twelve years o’ good, hard consistent boozin’ t’ kill a feller.

Coshocton Tribune (Coshocton, Ohio) Oct 18, 1926

Nevada State Journal – Apr 11, 1911

ZINGG SOLD CIGARETTES.
Grass Valley, Cal., April 1, 1906.

Editor OAKLAND TRIBUNE: Sir — I used ter resyde in Oakland, but after readin’ the sermons and newspaper akkounts of the wiked doins uv yure peple I feel thankful thet I am now residin’ in a moar moral kommunity.

It ‘pears tu me thet Berkly and Alameder are even wuss hotbeds of krime then Oakland.

From the time thet Deacon Logan set an example, which hes been follered by such a numerous band of amorous kohorts, Sally Jane an’ me heve been almost afraid to venture neer yure plase.

Our peeple are strong on chewin’ terbaccer an’ smokin’ pipes, but it is an unritten law here that if a feller is caught sellin’ or smokin’ cigarettes, ‘specially if he blos the smoke threw his nose, that the Vigilance Kommittee shall take the kriminal in hand.

The town of Alameda, on San Francisco bay,
Lay sleeping in the sunshine of a balmy winter’s day;
The merry wavelets rippled along the tide canal,
And the live oaks nodded to the breeze upon the Encinal.

But woe to Alameda, disaster, shame and crime
Were to stain its fair escutcheon, e’en to the end of time,
And fill each dweller’s bosom with the keenest of regrets,
For Macfarlane had discovered that Bill Zingg sold cigarettes.

The mayor and city officials all
Were summoned at once to the City Hall,
The police were ordered to be within call,
Armed, cap-a-pie, with powder and ball;
A resolution was passed expressing regrets
That wicked Bill Zingg had sold cigarettes.

At once the press and pulpit the news disseminates
To every town and city throughout our galaxy of States;
From Bangor east to the Philippines west come expression of regrets
That Bill Zingg of Alameda ‘d sold a pack of cigarettes.

For centuries bold Captain Kidd, freebooter of the main,
Has sustained a reputation which quite equaled that of Cain,
But now he’s way down on the list, his reputation sets
Away among the “has beens” since Zingg sold cigarettes.

Casabianca, It tells the story of Giocante Casabianca, a 12-year old boy, who was the son of Luce Julien Joseph Casabianca. Casabianca was the commander of Admiral de Brueys’ flagship, l’Orient , Giocante Casabianca stayed at his post aboard the flagship L’Orient during the Battle of the Nile. Giocante Casabianca and his father both died in an explosion when the fire reached the gunpowder store.

“Casabianca” was soon taken up by the parodists. As we’ve recently discussed on this forum, a good parody demands such close reading it might almost be thought an ironical act of love. But most of the anonymous parodists of “Casabianca” didn’t get beyond the first verse. “The boy stood on the burning deck./ His feet were covered in blisters./ He’d burnt the socks right off his feet/ And had to wear his sister’s” was the version I heard as a child.

A few more:

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Jun 24, 1895

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Feb 2, 1913

Syracuse Herald (Syracuse, New York) Sep 25, 1920

Syracuse Herald (Syracuse, New York) Jul 7, 1912

CASABIANCA.

THE BOY stood on the burning deck — an orator was he,
and in that scene of fire and wreck he spoke quite fluently,
“The men who hold the public scaps should all be fired,” he cried;
“they should make room for worthy chaps who wait their turn outside.
True virtue always stands without, and vainly yearns and tolls,
while wickedness in office shouts, and passes round the spoils.
One rule should govern our fair land — a rule that’s bound to win
all office holders should be canned, to let some new ones in.
All people usefully employed at forge, in mill or shop,
should know that labor’s null and void — man’s duty is to yawp.
The farmer should forsake his play, the harness man his straps;
the blacksmith should get busy now, and look around for snaps.
Why should the carpenter perform, when we have homes enough;
why should producers round us swarm, when statesmen are the stuff?
Why should we put up ice or hay, or deal in clothes or meat,
when politicians point the way that leads to Easy street?”
There came a burst of thunder sound; the boy — O where was he?
Ask of the winds that all around with lungs bestrewed the sea.

Walt Mason

Syracuse Herald (Syracuse, New York) Jun 14, 1911

THE SPENDING SPREE

The boy stood on the burning deck and soaked his aching head;
he wrote a million dollar check, then cheerily he said:
“My friends, I’ve never made a move one honest cent to earn,
but here’s where I start out to prove that I have wealth to burn.”
They called aloud, he would not go; heroic were his words:
“I’ve still got money left to throw at insects and at birds.”
And calmly midst the awful wreck while billows played wild games
he wrote another million check and fed it to the flames.
You say if you had such a boy you’d bend him o’er your knee,
and many shingles you’d deploy to curb his spending spree;
and yet you’re strutting ’round the deck as lordly as a jay
and spending money by the peck and throwing it away.
It seems that men cannot withstand the siren lure of debt;
the things their appetites demand they buy, already yet.
When times of stress and panic come they’ll utter naughty words
and wish they had the goodly sum they pelted at the birds.

I had originally planned to post this with the other “dolls in the attic” poem (see previous post) but after doing some research on Wilbur D, Nesbit, I decided to separate the poems so I could include more about him and his work.

IN THE ATTIC.

Up in the attic where mother goes
is a trunk in a shadowed nook —
A trunk — and its lid she will oft unclose
As it were a precious book.
She kneels at its side on the attic boards
And tenderly, soft and slow,
She counts all the treasures she fondly hoards —
The things of the long ago.

A yellow dress, once the sheerest white
That shimmered in joyous pride —
She looks at it now with the girl’s delight,
That was hers when she stood a bride.
There is a ribbon of faded blue —
She keeps with the satin gown;
Buckles and lace — and a little shoe;
Sadly she lays that down.

One lock of hair that is golden still
With the gold of the morning sun;
Yes, and a dollie with frock and frill —
She lifts them all one by one.
She lifts them all to her gentle lips
Up there in the afternoon;
Sometimes the rain from the eave trough drips
Tears with her quavered croon.

Up in the attic where mother goes
is a trunk in a shadowed place —
A trunk — with the scent of a withered rose
On the satin and shoe and lace.
None of us touches its battered lid,
But safe in its niche it stays
Scared to all that her heart had his —
Gold of the other days.

— W.D. Nebsit in Chicago Tribune.

New Castle News ( New Castle, Pennsylvania) Oct 28, 1904

Wilbur D. Nebsit was also the author of An Alphabet of History, the FRANKLIN image above taken from the book, which can be viewed/read on the Open Librarywebsite. I linked the Google book version of this book in my The Unknown Blue and Gray post, which also includes his poem by the same name.

* * * * *

A very brief Masonic Bio can be found HERE. Some of his Freemason poetry can be found HERE.

Below are some articles that give a little more insight:

Image from The Indianapolis Star – Apr 4, 1914

RACE DRAWS LARGE GROUP OF WRITERS

Scribes From Afar Arrive to Describe Speed Battle for Papers and Journals.

The 500-mile Motor Speedway race has drawn men from two continents, whose names are known to the world of letters. These men will relate the human interest tale of the struggle of men and steel machines against time and danger in the columns of publications throughout the world. Gellett Burgess is one of the many who will pen the history of the race.

Wilbur D. Nesbit, author of poems, comic operas and books, is another. He will write the story of the race for Harper’s Weekly….

The Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, Indiana) May 30, 1912

CHICAGO HOOSIERS ELECT.

Wilbur D. Nesbit Made President of Indiana Society.

Wilbur D. Nesbit, the well-known bard, was elected president during his absence in New York….

The Indianapolis Star – Jan 17, 1912

* * * * *

I clipped this particle biographical sketch from a book on Ancestry.com:

Source Information:

Ancestry.com. Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood [database on-line]. Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005. Original data: Dunn, Jacob Piatt,. Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1919.

Image from the Culver-Union Township Public Librarywebsite – Culver Through the Years

* * * * *

The following poem by Wilbur D. Nesbit appeared in The Indianapolis Star as part of:

the remarkable sermon delivered by Wilbur D. Nesbit, the famous Hoosier writer, in the Mt. Vernon Methodist Episcopal pulpit at Baltimore last Sunday…

A handful of dust, that is blown by the wind
That is sporting with whatever thing it may find.
It goes swirling and whirling and scattering on
Till it puffs into nothingness — then it is gone —
A handful of dust.

It may be a king who of old held his rule
O’er a country forgotten — it may be his fool
Who had smiles on his lips and had tears in his heart;
But the king, or the fool; who may tell them apart
In a handful of dust?

It may be some man who was mighty and proud,
Or a beggar, who trembled and crept through the crowd;
Or a woman who laughed, or a woman who wept,
Or a miser — but centuries long have they slept
In a handful of dust.

It may be a rose that once burst into flame,
Or a maiden who blushed as she whispered a name
To its ruby-red heart — and her lips were as read —
But no one remembers the words that she said,
In this handful of dust.

A handful of dust — it is death, it is birth.
It is naught; it is all since the first day of earth;
It is life, it is love, it is laughter and tears —
And it holds all the mystery lost in the years —
A handful of dust.

The Indianapolis Star — Jun 15, 1913

Call of “30” for Poet

Wilbur D. Nesbit, vice-president of the Wm. H. Rankin and Company Advertising Agency, and an author of renown, died Saturday at the Iroquois hospital in Chicago, thirty minutes after he had collapsed on the street.

During his career, Nesbit had served as humorous writer on the old Inter-Ocean, the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore American and the Chicago Evening Post. In more recent years he had allied himself with an advertising agency, but was a frequent contributor to magazines and had acquired much fame as an after-dinner speaker. As a poet, he ranked with the best. One of his finest contributions, which will always endear his name to the patriotic people, was entitled “Your Flag and My Flag.” This poem appeared in the Baltimore American in 1902, and was circulated throughout the country during the World war. A verse will not be amiss at this time:

“Your flag and my flag,
And how it flies today,
In your land and my land
And half a world away!
Rose-red and blood -red
The stripes forever gleam;
Snow-white and soul-white
The good forefathers’ dream.”

Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin) Aug 23, 1927

Famous Folk

Wilbur Dick Nesbit, the poet and journalist, whose first novel, “The Gentleman Ragman,” has just been published, was born in Xenia, O., in 1871. He began his career as printer and later worked as a reporter. His reputation has been won largely as a contributor of verse to magazines.

While Nesbit was finishing “The Gentleman Ragman” he was spending a few weeks in a country town in Indiana. He had sent nearly all of the revised manuscript to his publishers, but certain details of the completion of the plot had been the subject of discussion between himself and a friend connected with the publishing house.

One day a telegram for Nesbit was received at the village telegraph office. It read:

“What are you going to do about Annie Davis and Pinkney Sanger?”

Annie is the heroine of “The Gentleman Ragman;” Pinkney is the villain, if there is one in the book. The local telegraph operator personally delivered the message, and Nesbit wrote this reply:

“Will marry Annie Davis and shoot Pinkney Sanger as soon as I return to Chicago.”

The operator stared at Nesbit wonderingly when he read the message, but Nesbit did not fathom that stare until the morning when he took the train for home, when the village marshal stepped up and said meaningly:

“Mr. Nesbit, I would advise you, as an officer of the law, sir, not to do anything rash when you get to Chicago.”

WILBUR DICK NESBIT expounded a brand of patriotism that seems to have fallen out of fashion in the current age when draft dodgers become folk heroes and the American flag is publicly despoiled.

Born in Xenia Sept. 16, 1871, the son of a Civil War veteran and court bailiff here, he grew up in Cedarville where he learned to set type on the old Cedarville Herald in which paper his first wrtings appears.

After two years he went to an Anderson, Ind. papers as a reporter, then to the Muncie (Ind.) Star in a similar capacity. There his copy attracted the attention of John T. Brush, an Indianapolis clothing merchant, who put him in charge of his store advertising.

From there he joined the ad staff of the Indianapolis Journal and next became a feature writer for the Baltimore American under the nom de plume Josh Wind [k]. After three years he was lured to the staff of the Chicago Tribune where he conducted the column “A Line O’ Type Or Two” and then joined the Evening Post.

* * *

AFTER HE BECAME director of the copy staff for the Makin Advertising Co. he bought an interest in it and changed the name to Rankin Advertising Agency. HE co-authored the musical comedy “The Girl of My Dreams” and turned out reams of poetry in some of which he collaborated with cartoonist Clare Briggs.

His collection, “Trail to Boyland,” reminisced about Greene County and Cedarville in the pastoral patern of James Whitcomb Riley. He also published “After Dinner Speeches and How to Make Them,” “Sermons in Song,” and “Poems of Homely Philosophy.” His “Your Flag and My Flag” was recited in most school classrooms.

Nesbit died Aug. 20, 1927. Recently his friend and admirer, ex-Cedarvillian, Fred F. Marshall, came up with his timely and appropriate poem entitled “The U.S.A.,” which follows:

There’s them that wants to get us skeered
By tellin’ us o’ things they feared.
They say we’re goin’ to th’ dogs,
Th’ gov’nment has skipped some cogs
An’ that ef we don’t trust to them
Our futur’ wont be worth a dem!
But I want to say
Th’ U.S.A.
Ain’t figgerin’ to run that way.

I’ve noticed things fer many years;
I’ve seen these men arousin’ cheers —
These high-hat men with long-tail coats
That tells us how to cast our votes,
I’ve noticed, too, their idees is
That votin’s all the people’s biz
But I want to say
Th’ U.S.A.
Ain’t only jest election day.

I’ve seen ’em lift their trimblin’ arm
An do their p’intin’ with alarm
Afore election! An’ I’ve seen
How they don’t do much work between
Elections! Seem to save their brains
For workin’ durin’ th’ campaigns
An’ I want to say
The U.S.A.
Don’t give them fellers its O.K.

There’s one or two that I wont name
That keeps a firm hand-holt on Fame
By stormin’ up an’ down the road
A-tellin’ us what long we’ve knowed
That is, they rise to heights sublime
Along about election time
Yit I want to say
The U.S.A.
Ain’t figured yit to turn their way.

It ain’t th’ men that tells our sins
That almost al’ays sometimes wins —
Its them that rolls their sleeves an’ helps
While these yere talkin’ humans yelps
That makes us know our native land
Has got a craw that’s full o’ sand
An’ makes us say
The U.S.A
Is settin’ tight an’ here to stay!

He comes at early sunrise
And knocks upon my door,
And says with glee: “I never
Saw such a morn before.
The mercury’s at zero,
I’m frozen through and through,
And yet I like this weather —
Is it cold enough for you?”

He comes into my office
A smile upon his face,
And tells me of Dakota,
And many an unthawed place,
Where cattle die by thousands,
And men by hundreds do,
And closes up by saying:
“Is it cold enough for you?”

He meets me on the sidewalk
Where the wind the keenest blows,
And stops me with his story
While I freeze my ears and nose,
And asks the same old question,
As I inward fret and stew,
And wish the man in Jericho —
“Is it cold enough for you?”

If ever fortune favors
I’ll be even with him yet —
This weather fiend who bothers
And whom I can’t forget;
I’ll do it in a manner
That will be both neat and trim;
I’ll drive him to distraction,
But I’ll make it hot for him.

— Detroit Journal.

The Daily Northern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Mar 5, 1901

WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PANE.

When the frost is on the window
And the lawn is covered o’er
With a foot of snow where pansies
Spread their petals out before,
Oh, it’s then there is a crispness
In the circumabient air
That compels a man to hustle
When he’s going anywhere —
Makes him wish that he were like a
Duck that calmly takes its head
And tucks it ‘neath a winglet,
As a child is put to bed.

When the man with flowing whiskers
Carries round a lot of ice
Dangling downward from his features,
Some folks claim to think it’s nice —
Claim that they enjoy such weather,
That it’s best to have it so —
That it fills them full of ginger
And that sort of thing, you know;
But I’ve noticed that the people
Who praise up the wintry blasts
For the most part do it only
While the summer season lasts.

— Exchange.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Feb 2, 1899

THE GLORIOUS CLIMATE.

Say! but ain’t it gorgeous?
Never see the beat;
Last week arctic weather,
Frozen hands and feet;
This week, sun a-shining’,
Air ez soft ez May,
Feel like goin’ skippin’
with the kids at play!

Say! but life is jolly,
When the weather’s fine;
Spirits like the merc’ry
Racin’ up the line;
Never mind the coal bills,
Slight the plumber’s dun,
When you’re out a baskin’
In this friendly sun!

Say! but ain’t the weather
An’ liver, lots to blame,
Fer feelin’s that we’re blamin’
Our friends fer jes’ the same?
Fer when the sun is shinin’
Somehow the world is bright,
an’ when the liver’s workin’
Whatever is is right!